Inflatable devices for people to sit, lie or sleep on are well known in the prior art. Generally speaking, such cushions, when used for medical applications, are used by immobilized patients. Various types of these cushions purport to provide a reduced pressure on the body and/or relieve pressure in specific zones or on specific parts of the body. The materials of manufacture of these cushions generally do not allow water vapor produced by the person's perspiration or condensation to escape from the vicinity of his/her body, thus requiring an additional item to be placed between the patient and the support surface.
In addition, inflatable devices of the prior art are generally configured so that their construction requires a large amount of labor, usually because the formation of individual air chambers that make up the entire device need to be connected in a way that allows the chambers to be filled with air at the time of inflation, and at the same time must be placed and configured to provide suitable support to the user. The prior art designs require a time consuming assembly and mechanical joining of material to make the device, and this labor intensive construction of the air-filled devices makes them expensive, and consequently unsuitable for disposable applications, such as in a hospital environment where the devices may be contaminated by contact with a patient.
It is also a problem in the prior art that if there is a rupture or loss of pressure in an inflatable device, the entire device will collapse. The result may be that, for instance, in a hospital bed, a patient might roll off the underlying bed or mattress system, or be dropped onto an uncomfortable surface below the deflated air mattress.
What is desired, therefore, is an inflatable device for people to be supported on which allows water vapor produced by the person's perspiration or condensation to escape from the vicinity of his/her body, which can be readily manufactured without undue amounts of human labor, which is suitable for disposable use, and which is of such a construction that in the event that there is a rupture or loss of pressure the entire device will not collapse.